Coronavirus: White House insists Trump has not told administration to slow testing despite president saying it at rally

Donald Trump's top spokeswoman insisted Monday that the president has not ordered anyone in his administration to slow coronavirus testing despite saying he did just that during a Saturday evening campaign rally.

"No, he has not," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters. "Any suggestion that testing has been slowed is not rooted in fact."

Mr Trump was "joking" and criticising the media for not reporting that the United States leads the world in testing, she added. (That is a false statement, however.)

Ms McEnany, like other Trump spokespersons before her on some of his most controversial statements or tweets, stood at the White House briefing room lectern and insisted the president was merely speaking in "jest."

But it was not clear as he spoke in Tulsa that he was joking, and she denied that he was making light of a virus that has killed at least 120,000 people in America.

"Then, I closed it down to Europe early, closed it down because I saw what was happening. And by the way, most people said, don't do it, don't do it. We saved hundreds of thousands of lives and all we do is get hit on like we're terrible. And what we've done with the ventilators and with the medical equipment and with testing – you know, testing is a double edged sword," Mr Trump said. "We've tested now 25 million people. It's probably 20 million people more than anybody else. Germany's done a lot, South Korea's done a lot. They call me, they say the job you're doing – here's the bad part, when you test of – when you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases.

"So, I said to my people slow the testing down, please. They test and they test," Mr Trump said.

The president and his top aides, as Ms McEnany did again on Monday, have contended that more testing means local officials find more Covid-19 cases. That is true but they have yet to acknowledge that those people are still sick with a disease Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, say the Trump administration was slow to respond to.

But some top Democratic governors in states that have seen sharp declines in Covid-19 cases and deaths, like New Jersey, say testing was a big key in dealing with the virus in their areas. That state's governor, Democrat Phil Murphy, told CNN on Monday morning that it was testing as much as any other state that help his administration be able to open nail salons and other similar shops on Monday.